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On 18 March 2011, DECC issued details of its policy to reduce support to large scale photovoltaic (PV). As expected, the cuts to support are significant. Though it will be no comfort to the PV industry, there is some good news for others in the renewable industry - due to poorer than expected take-up of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) in relation to farm-scale anaerobic digestion (AD), DECC proposes to increase FIT support in this area. We review the changes to the tariffs in both these areas and DECC's timescales for policy change below.

The consultation can be found here. This is open until 6 May 2011, which is shorter than in the government Code of Practice on Consultation on the basis that DECC consider this matter to be urgent in order to deliver the savings promised in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

DECC proposes to make changes to the tariffs on 1 August 2011 and they will apply to all installations commissioned from that date.

Therefore, on the basis of the current plans, in order to qualify for the current tariffs, installations will need to be commissioned prior to 1 August 2011.

The consultation also mentioned that the FIT in general will be reviewed for other technologies in the coming months, with any changes to tariffs made in that regard to be implemented from April 2012.

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